NASA Delays Future Artemis Moon Missions – Again (update)
Keith’s note: According to NASA PAO “NASA will hold a media teleconference at 1:30 p.m. EST Tuesday, Jan. 9, to provide an update on the agency’s lunar exploration plans for the benefit of all under Artemis. Audio of the briefing will stream live on NASA’s website.” So … what will be discussed? According to Reuters: “Senior NASA officials in recent months have been mulling plans to move the inaugural Artemis astronaut landing to the fourth mission, giving SpaceX and other contractors more practice before making the first such landing in half a century. NASA officials presented that option to the agency’s senior leadership last month, but it could not be determined if it chose that path. It was also unclear what the new target dates for the initial Artemis missions would be.” In 2004 NASA announced that America was going back to the Moon. 20 years later and that is still 3-4 years ahead. In 1961 NASA was challenged to go to the Moon by 1970. It got there early. When we did not know how to go to the Moon we did so faster and much cheaper. Now that we know a lot more about how to go to the Moon it takes us longer to repeat what was once so easy to do. What’s up with that? Update: here is NASA’s release. I live tweeted the presser on @NASAwatch
12 responses to “NASA Delays Future Artemis Moon Missions – Again (update)”
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The big flaw here on NASA’s part is believing the hype from commercial entities that have never come close to meeting a promised schedule (yet continue to be awarded “commercial” contracts with excessively front-loaded payment milestones). And my money says that HLS won’t even be the critical path, it will be the new EVA suits that are even further behind.
and what about the NASA PAO hype of SLS/Orion launching first mission in 2018, 2019, 2020, let’s not act like Orion hasn’t been burning cash since 2006 contract award and still sliding schedules to the right. It’s not like Orion and SLS are sitting around on the pad waiting for all the lunar lander and suits vendors to be ready for the mission.
I’m not sure why NASA had a flaw and ‘believed’ commercial industry hype or that they ever believed it. NASA has no choice but to depend upon Mr. Musk’s deep pockets to pay for the lander. NASA is spending its entire wad, about $5 billion a year, on Artemis, whether anything flies or not. There is no other money to pay for a lander.
I suspect budget is part of the reason for slipping to later in 2025. Just slip another month or two and they are into the 2026 FY. Well, this slip was widely anticipated.
If StarShip is not ready for a crewed landing in 2 years, and it is doubtful it will be, you can expect another year slip next year.
I think a landing in 2030 might be possible. It really does not make sense to fly Artemis 2 much more than a year before that.
Maybe the next Artemis launch in about 5 years.
in theory you could do a gateway HALO outfitting mission if Starship isn’t ready for Artemis 3. that would also simplify the later iHab Art 4 flight as crew will have already ingressed gateway and done some outfitting on HALO before bringing up iHab with Orion. that would be a way to keep Artemis 3 to be a fully test flight of Orion and scrap the Orion to starship direct dock on off complexity. so if starship and/or spacesuits become long pole you could keep flying the $4B sls/orion doing something useful instead of being a $4B a year hangar queen.
2025 art 2 – free flight assumes heat shield/battery issue don’t cause further delays
2026 art 3′ – Orion docks to HALO – outfitting HALO no HLS
2028 art 4′ – gateway, Orion with comanifested iHab (assumes Boeing delivers EUS on schedule)- complete outfitting gateway and no lunar landing
2029 art 5′ – gateway mission, starship first lunar landing or if BO is ready they go first
then you are back on track once a year Orion, gateway, HLS (starship and BO)
I guess it is now a lunar space station program.
Not sure what that is all about. Science in deep space?
“Now that we know a lot more about how to go to the Moon it takes us longer to repeat what was once so easy to do. What’s up with that?”
Well, the NASA budget is currently about $25.4 billion. In 1962 it was $24.4 billion in constant dollars. It was $63 billion in 1964, the peak. It wasn’t until 1974 that it was below current spending. They have to constantly stretch things out to match budget, which increases total cost of programs.
We don’t know anything more about going to the Moon today. We do have better and lighter technology.
You are mixing two different kinds of budgets. The 25$billion today is each year. The 24$billion in the 1960s was a total budget over about 10 years.
I remember when Orion aka Artemis was once “safe, simple, and soon”, in 2006, planned to fly in 2011. 2006 is going on 2 decades now. Amazing; how long can they draw a program out?
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/garycrotaz_nasa-artemis-artemisiii-activity-7150780265689214977-erbh?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios
Much of NASA and particularly its human spaceflight group is not an R&D organization and has not been one in several decades. That generation is dead. That distinction was lost thanks in large measure to the astronaut office and the lords of mission control during Shuttle. Remember when they proclaimed themselves an ‘operations organization’. I think they felt they were the new USAF, flying all the new jets and rockets. Even with commercial space that only seems to be one new spaceship every 5 years? Gone are.the days of Shuttles flying 6 or 8 times a year and carrying hundreds of crewmembers. The Artemis 2 crew, trotted out about a year ago, probably will be hanging in the wings for several more years. Its kind of amazing to see how far NASA has fallen. The dream is now kept alive by merchandisers selling NASA logos on t-shirts. The HD photography of Apollo makes it appear like Moon missions were recent events. But no one has been back in 50 years, and we likely won’t see it happen in 60.
NASA today is a political, not an engineering organization. It loves making deals. It doesnt like building stuff. Its no